No, this is not one more sneaky pitch for Barack Obama...but there is an old guard versus new guard, past versus future spin to the subject.
While Dem candidates continue to battle for the lead in the neverending presidential primary season, the city’s teachers union, UTLA, is in the midst of its own election fever, which even includes a series of debates, the last of which is tonight.
As expected, incumbent prez A.J. Duffy is running again. But frankly, it’s time for him to go. For one thing, he’s been stubbornly unwilling to play nice with charter schools, despite repeated approaches from Steve Barr’s Green Dot. He has also been notably obstructionist in the face of other innovations that he perceived as threatening the union’s control—which at times seemed to be nearly everything.
Linda Guthrie, the union’s VP who is challenging Duffy for the presidency, is tough, respected but much more willing than Duffy has been to embrace a future featuring cooperation rather than intractability.
In fact Guthrie comes right out and says that she’s in favor of charters, and seems to believe that the best of them are not only healthier for students, but also better for teachers in that they accord instructors more control over what they teach than one generally finds at LAUSD. Guthrie wants the charters to be unionized, of course, but she has a bunch of smart and forward-looking ideas as to how to work out deals with the charter operators.
I know Guthrie, and one of the things I like best about her is her clarity about the fact that it’s the well-being of the students, not just the well-being of the union, that ought to be driving the discussion.
In short, for my money, a vote for Linda Guthrie and her slate is a no brainer.
The seeds of destruction for an enterprise are found in its formation. “Guthrie wants the charters to be unionized.”
Be sure to check out the piece in March Atlantic by Sandra Tsing Loh on her experience in the LAUSD (it’s in the book reviews section and not online.) I have no idea how representative it is, but it’s the most hopeful piece I’ve seen recently about at least one parent’s getting involved and finding a relatively successful enclave in a big, urban, notoriously dysfunctional school district. (It touches on the uncomfortable fact that most “white liberals” no more want their kids in truly “integrated” schools that reflect the realities of socio-economic “diversity” than Orval Faubus did.)
Not just white liberals. The first time he ran for mayor Villargosa was asked why his kids were in Parochial School. Instead of saying he wanted them instructed in the faith but not at taxpayer expense (vouchers for Catholic schools) he said he didn’t want to “sacrifice” his kids. Well isn’t that too, too bad!
I have known many recent immigrants who were shocked by the problem of gangs, drugs and violence in Los Angeles schools. Even schools in the poorest of countries don’t have the problems the LAUSD has. No one in their right mind would want their kids in schools, like Belmont High School.
I’m not saying that people aren’t making defensible choices for their kids – just saying that what has transpired is, in fact, a rejection of something that many liberals claim to believe in on principle but don’t want to engage or make any sacrifices for in reality. Kind of “normal” behavior, but not admirable and it kind of robs folks of any moral authority when addressing the issues. Oakland has about as bad a public school system overall as one could imagine, but there are good schools within it and lots of non-affluent kids manage to get what they need to go on to good colleges and universities. Parent involvement in individual schools is generally a bellweather of the degree to which that school is successful overall. The Atlantic article I mentioned deals with some of this from one person’s admittedly anecdotal experience.
Reg, I’ll make sure I get Sandra’s piece. Thanks for flagging it. For the past several years, Sandra has been writing terrific stuff about her LAUSD experiences and, when we last talked, intends to do a book on the whole thing. (I think and hope this is still true.) There are definitely pockets of excellence within the district, many of the magnet schools being among them. Also, LAUSD has tended to do better at the primary school level, where the schools (and class sizes) are smaller, and parents can have more of an effect.
Sandra and I have an ongoing dialogue about what she’s doing, what it portends for the whole. With extremely rare exceptions, I agree with her wholeheartedly—and don’t see her POV as being at odds with my own utter fury at the district.
But, yeah, parental involvement makes a big, big difference. It is one of the tenets of the Green Dot schools and some of the other charter schools. Yet, as many of the parents in the inner city communities are over stressed and unused to believing that they can and/or should be involved, finding ways to engage them is its own kind of art. In too many cases, LAUSD seems to work at excluding the parents.
I think you’re right about the system getting more closed and stagnant at the upper levels. Race also appears to play a bigger factor the older the kids get as well and often in weird ways. My nephew did well in Oakland public elementary and middle schools. But at the high school level, his best choice was a school that he would probably have been fine in were he Asian, but as a black male who is a high-achiever his life would have been miserable in the context of the racially-clustered peer groups that existed. That sounds crazy, but it’s true – ultimately his mom wasn’t willing to “sacrifice” him and she made some large sacrifices herself to move to an outlying predominantly white district where he’s doing great and manages to fit in quite well socially. Life’s ironies.
So finally reg, from Oakland not even with first-hand knowledge of LA or LAUSD, grudgingly concedes some points about how just maybe, his fanatically ult-lib views on how the world should be based on ideals he gleaned some 30+ years ago, just might not square with reality. After viciously attacking Maggie, who gave her first-hand account of life as it is, and as everyone on the westside knows it is, because it didn’t jibe with his socialist views.
But the “crazy” fact that a black kid couldn’t fit into a school situation where his color and cultural identity were an issue beyond his control (and he committed the extra sin of being smart and presumably, caring more about learning than what kind of court shoes he wore), and so his mom wasn’t willing to “sacrifice him” for political correctness, but “made some large sacrifices herself” to get him into a better environment, a “predominantly white” one in this case, shocks him into seeing one of “life’s ironies.”
(Even a lib like L A Res can apparently acknowledge the facts on the street, that many schools are so full of gangs and drugs and violence and ethnic battles that even people “from the poorest countries” would “not in their right minds” ever send their kids to them.)
Gee, but not before he brands everyone else who experiences and has to deal with this reality a racist and worse — but oh, that’s only if you’re white and don’t fit into “the racially-clustered peer groups,” and especially, if that situation is now taking place in what used to be “your” own neighborhood school. So the “sacrifice” these parents have to make isn’t necessarily moving out of their homes, if they otherwise like the area, but forfeiting “their” own schools for private or parochial ones, while continuing to pay for them. Those who can’t afford this craziness do like your black mom, and just up and move to a “predominantly white” neighborhood. (Not because THEY’RE racist — many of these are libs who would genuinely like a multi-cultural experience as long as it’s safe, educationally sound and the kids are from a similar socio-economic background where they don’t bring gang and “street” culture with them to school.)
What hypocrites people like reg are, mired in the religion they were taught decades ago, until they see it in THEIR own family. What an obstacle to real solutions. Much like Duffy sounds, and many entrenched teachers in UTLA. How many kids have been “sacrificed” to people clinging to a PC failed dream, being blamed for the failure in fact, and how many families have moved out of L A, strengthening other towns and weakening this city?
Still an idiot…
Also, this cretin apparently considers Iran to be part of the “West Side of LA”, since my “attack” on Maggie she references had to do with the fantastical notion that Iran poses some significant military threat to the United States – which she claimed Fahreed Zakaria was a total “moron” for not acknowleding.
This was an interesting thread of comments until this bile-dripping bilious boor showed up. I don’t have time for this crap.
Maybe I’m a victim of Early onset Alzheimer’s but I am having a great deal of trouble in comprehending RCT’s point above. Just what is it about LAUSD that brings in “gangs and drugs and violence and ethnic battles” that don’t seem to occur in, say, Pasadena. And why does a friend of mine have no problem with his kid attending elemenary and middle school in Richmond but, when it is time for HS moves to Orinda? What? Every urban district provided free showings of “Blackboard Jungle” in HS Orientation?
Forbes mag just listed L A as the 7th Most Miserable city in the country, with violent crimes and high taxes major factors. NYC, Chicago and Philadelphia were even worse, if it makes anyone feel any better. (All the cities had traffic congestion problems, too.)
Maybe what’s wrong with LAUSD is that it pulls in kids from L A, parts of which are among the most violent in the country, and the 3 biggest cities are the worst. But the second-tier cities like Charlotte are managing to get into the Top 10, thanks to their violence stats, too; maybe Richmond is battling its way into this ignominious top tier.
Maybe Pasadena doesn’t have these problems because kids go to school in their OWN areas, because there’s a commitment from the city to build schools for local kids, and aren’t bused in to other areas where these conflicts would occur. (There DOES seem to be a definite split between North and South Pas in terms of schools and safety, though, as any realtor or resident will tell you. But it follows the national norm that you buy into a neighborhood, which includes the schools, you don’t lose “your” schools.)
I’m listening to parts of the City’s “Ad Hoc Committee on Gangs and Youth,” chaired by Cardenas (with Hahn, who is intent on raising our taxes further in the form of property taxes, to “create a dedicated revenue stream” for gang programs), and am impressed by testimony from people who work in the projects and former gangbangers who are on staff working with at-risk youth.
One self-described former “warlord” of his hood says that he and some peers are volunteering to help prevent more “civil wars” from breaking out in the streets, but that many won’t help out in the open because the new City Gang Injunction is written so that any former gangbanger associated with current gangbangers for ANY reason, is violating the law and can be arrested. Unless there’s a certified gang interventionist vouching for them, they’d be stupid to stick their necks out, even though some of these “warlords” want to help kids from getting further involved in gangs. Without them the cops have no bridge, since anyone lower than a Warlord is in jeapardy as a snitch.
But it struck me that one woman worker talked about how lots of times, the only solution to a problem is to get the kid out of the hood, and her group especially helps people move to Palmdale. Surprise, surprise, the people and officials in Palmdale don’t like this too much, and blame the population shift for their own corresponding explosion in gang crime. Adding to the irony, there is so much resentment and retaliation against these new migrants to their town, that the former L A “almost-gangbangers” feel “less safe” than they did before. (Similar things are happening in places like Victorville, and Monrovia’s Latino-black gang wars have been all over the news lately.)
Anyway — I can be concerned about all this and want to help as a compassionate human being, but to sacrifice my kids to this system because of some P C myths would be negligent. No, it would be criminal.
rlc – that’s an excellent question and I THINK it has something to do (as celeste also notes) with there being more elementary and middle schools, allowing for more “niche” experiences. This definitely appears to be the case in Oakland where there are fewer high schools and the campuses are larger and likely more impervious to attempts at change. One of the things that infuriated me during Jerry Brown’s tenure was the “liberal” backlash against his establishing a military academy using some local plant and personnel resources that would otherwise have been wasted. He saw it as a way of offering another choice within the public school system that would provide structure and discipline to kids and parents who could benefit from that type of environment. The academy has been fairly successful – although not without some problems. But I’d rather have my (hypothetical) kid there than in several of the other Oakland high schools. I’m disgusted with the “leadership” that’s been exhibited over the past 25 years in the Bay Area public schools and am ready to consider anything that offers some prospect of moving forward rather than stagnating or losing even more ground. (That said, the school systems are unfairly expected to resolve broad and, under current “leadership”, intractable social problems that have festered for years, from major economic push-pull on both sides of the border for huge waves of immigration, mostly “illegal”, to rampant economic decay and social chaos in inner cities, to what I can only describe as the extreme cultural dissonance that makes me recoil in horror when I occasionally venture into the wasteland of cable TV (HBO and a few others mostly excluded – although not entirely.)
The premise that serious social problems only start in h.s. is not valid for parts of L. A. — Read today’s (2/12) article, “Secure in Their Studies,” about Markham Middle School in Watts. Describes dramatic efforts to improve security at the school, thanks to some committed people, some $300K donated for the on-campus Boys and Girls Club to buy supplies any urban school would be proud of, other attempts to make the place look more inviting — yet, last year, of some 1600 students, almost 1/3 were suspended for “threats of physical harm” or serious disobedience issues.
Concludes with one kid saying that although he knows the school is much safer this year, he can’t walk down a hall without constantly turning to look over his shoulder, on the alert for being jumped. This is a habit many kids who go to L A public schools acquire, including in better areas. One adult in his mid-twenties, a scholarship grad of Yale, caught the attention of some of us at a social event for the same tick, and he said he’d acquired it at North Hollywood High. Even though he was in their Gifted Program, lunch and PE were mixed, as was just walking around, and a white boy who was too smart to be cool had to doubly learn to fight.
In my experience this starts even in elementary school. When I went to check out the school my kids were assigned to before I made up my mind that it wasn’t an option, several kids came into the principal’s office, bloodied and crying, including one little blonde girl in an otherwise perfectly pressed dress. The secretary said she hated to send kids like that back out into the yard, but there was nothing she could do. This is a school which serves an affluent area like mine, as well as tenement parts of Hollywood. There are several like that. Then there are the schools of Mar Vista, which I understand have similar extremes of people assigned to them, kids from the projects to oceanview homes.
The handful of westside elementary schools which serve locals are bursting at the seams, and have had to ask kids on a permit (usually with parents working nearby) to leave or not re-enroll next year. Meanwhile, there’s an overall drop in LAUSD enrollment but schools are being built in those areas of declining enrollment. Many Homeowner groups blame these problems on development and want to curtail new people from moving into the area, but families with school- aged kids wanting to move into an area is a sign of health. It’s LAUSD which is terminally ill — it’s self-destructive to alienate and ignore this critical group of taxpayers.
The area around Markham should be so lucky — the kids from the 4 surrounding projects continue their turf wars at school, and the administration (with the help of the city, Mayor and City Attorney) have to deal with all that baggage before the kids can take learning seriously. If it’s true these problems magnify in h.s., no wonder so many drop out.
Just to make sure I was clear, the middle schools are nearly as problematic as the high schools, but have been less in the media. Elementary schools, for the most part (although there are many exceptions) seem to be doing somewhat better.
“The premise that serious social problems only start in h.s. is not valid for parts of L. A.”
Interesting that someone who touts “reading comprehension” would be so lacking in it. That was never the “premise.”
Funny the FORBES lists LA and New York among the “Most Miserable.” When lil’ Stevie’s father ran the mag he use to list recommended eateries in the Apple. When readers wrote in to complain that he left out places elsewhere, Malcom, the old capitalist tool that he was, replied that sooner or later any businessman of any calibre would come to Gotham – it was the center after all!
Maggie, just as a matter of form, it’s confusing and frustrating when you post under different names.
The “premise” of middle vs. h.s. clearly referred to previous comment, from ric in #11. (reg, it’s so tedious to know that after comment, you’ll pipe up w your ignorant, snide swipe as surely as night follows day. We’ve listened to your endless rants on every subject because it’s clearly a form of therapy for you, not because you offer any illumination — shut up!!)
(Celeste, I wasn’t referring to your intro, much as I appreciate your regular reports from the trenches, or Sandra’s comments, which I’ve followed — she’s very pithy and amusing — but having fought the battles in the trenches ahead of her, I don’t need her one view of one part of L A to “inform” my views. Generalizing about elem. schools doing better is just that, a generalization — the fact that most people have no adverse effects from lipo didn’t do much to affect the outcome of Kanye West’s mother’s surgery. Yes there are a handful of decent elem. schools while literally no middle or high schools on the westside, Hollywood or Hollywood Hills fall into that category. When it comes to the Westside and Hollywood Hills etc., there are very different issues and realities from S LA or Sandra’s: the stuff you write about has no bearing on this area, which is generally aggressively ignored by the liberal activists who opine on and influence the policies of LAUSD. (That’s the ONLY reason I pipe up: everyone else in my area has given up trying to be a voice in the wilderness on this, watching the district and their taxes go down the black hole as they scramble to do what they can for their own kids: but as a writer, it’s my nature to observe reality, even if I have to endure the insect bites of the holier-than-thou know-nothing reg’s of society. — Who lives in Oakland, for pete’s sake. The idea of my devaluing the first-hand experiences of someone who’s fought the school battles in Oakland, is so incomprehensibly arrogant, it boggles the mind. That’s what you get when you have someone who totally devalues first-hand experience, travel and education because he has none.)
ric, as for the Forbes rankings: Listing NYC as the most miserable for the hoi polloi, doesn’t preclude it from being the city of choice for the wealthy — to the contrary, it’s the lack of affordability for the masses, high taxes, crime and traffic that put it on the list. But the wealthy don’t care about any of that — for them, it’s the mantra that “if it exists anywhere, it exists somewhere in New York, no matter the price,” that counts. NYC has always been a city of socioeconomic extremes, it’s just gotten worse. (Even closer to the “Blade Runner” version of the “future,” which is almost the present.) As a former NYorker who’s still bicoastal, I love the place anyway or despite all that — but Forbes is right when it comes to ranking the city in terms of liveability for the “average American family.’
Sorry “reading comprehensio” genius, but rlc didn’t state a “premise”, he asked a question. The only “premise” put forward related to this lower/higher grade dichotomy was suggested by both Celeste and myself, i.e. that elementary (and in my case, middle) schools had a better chance of finding ways of navigating the myriad existing problems because there were more of them, they were generally dealiing with smaller populations and were thus less resistant to positive intervention by parents and more creative educators.
As for “We’ve listened to your endless rants on every subject because it’s clearly a form of therapy for you, not because you offer any illumination – shut up!!”, questions of both irony and self-awareness leap out at any reader who has followed these threads.
I have to say that that Forbes list is so idiotic it hardly even bears comment. But I will.
I’m not charmed by Los Angeles at all and admit to loving both Chicago and New York, although I’m not tempted to live in either one again (glad I did and wish I had still had free room and board on visits to Chicago, as I do in Manhattan – was relegated to bunking at the Ambassador East last time and it’s not the same since Sinatra left us) – but whatever one’s personal pespective on the 3 greatest American urbs, putting any of them on a list of “most miserable cities” makes no sense at all. Especially when you have LA landing just a notch above Modesto on this incoherent scale. And the ratings didn’t even factor in basics like housing costs or quality of schools that ultimately determine “liveabilty” for most families – and which obviously mitigates against New York in particular but hardly makes the quality of life “miserable” for the folks who actually choose to live there or tney wouldn’t continue to flock to the city and stick out all of the downsides.
The clear premise was that elem and middle schools are safe enough to send kids to while the h. s. in the same town isn’t — that doesn’t apply to much of L A, altho it apparently does to Richmond still, at least for ric’s friends.
re: posting under diff’t names: if a certain rabid person didn’t feel obliged to scream hysterically at the sight of certain names, maybe the content would get through — but it’s drowned out by his knee-jerk hysteria every time. As a “matter of form,” maybe he should just shut up or address the issues instead.
Re: Sandra’s commentaries: her best insights are about navigating the labyrinthine Magnet School system, with its points for race, being rejected from school of choice (each worth one pt.), and tips on how to accumulate points — e.g. applying when you know you’ll be rejected anyway, so that your kid accrues pts. and might actually get in some years down the road. I’ve never heard anything quite as honest. It all just underscores what a farce the whole system is.
You can’t read coherently. It’s really that simple, because you’re asserting a “premise” that wasn’t even remotely proposed. The operative words were “pockets of excellence” and “it has something to do (as celeste also notes) with there being more elementary and middle schools, allowing for more “niche” experiences.” So the premise was, obviously, about scale and structure rather than “serious social problems only start in h.s.” or “elem and middle schools are safe enough to send kids to while the h. s. in the same town isn’t.” I could care less how stupid you apparently are, but having cranial density paraded with showers of self-regard rubs me the wrong way. Especially when combined with the unprovoked serial ad hominem rant you interjected into a civilized, rational, nuanced discussion.
As for “rabid persons”, I’ll leave any reader of this thread – or any other – to determine who gets the Gold. I’m confident it’s not even close.
reg, you have lots of “civilized, rational, nuanced discussions” with yourself and usually people are happy to leave you to it, but you keep interjecting your rants and attacks into things you know nothing about as well. Like…
If you haven’t heard Obama’s speech tonite, check it out here:
http://www.c-span.org/
scroll down just a bit
Lots of the classic “Obamaisms” but this one lays out a great balance between “inspiration” and “perspiration.” Head and shoulders above any presidential candidate in my memory, with the possible exception of Bobby Kennedy. Honestly, it’s been a long time but I don’t remember ever hearing anything from RFK that matched Obama’s skills.
Just getting back on point: Guthrie or Duffy for UTLA President? Her “Unite to Lead” slate of candidates, or Duffy’s “United Action” slate? Personally, I believe that Duffy’s divisive leadership style simply mirrors the dysfunction occuring at LAUSD headquarters.
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